Abram Bell (born 1830)

In 1830, in the year that Abram Bell was born, on May 28th, the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. The Act authorized the President to negotiate with Native Americans in the southern region of the US, exchanging their ancestral lands for federal territory west of the Mississippi River. Tens of thousands of Native Americans were forced to move - and march - west.

In 1844, on June 6th in London, George Williams set up the first YMCA based on the idea of a healthy "body, mind, and spirit" - what he considered Christian values. Now headquartered in Geneva Switzerland, there are over 57 million worldwide beneficiaries and 125 national associations.

In 1924, J. Edgar Hoover, at the age of 29, was appointed the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation by Calvin Coolidge (which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation). The Bureau had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents. A former employee of the Justice Department, Hoover accepted his new position on the proviso that the bureau was to be completely divorced from politics and that the director report only to the attorney general.

In 1939, in May, Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, reached a total international gross of $6.5 million which made it (to then) the most successful sound film of all time. First released in December 1937, it was originally dubbed "Disney's Folly" but the premiere received a standing ovation from the audience. At the 11th Academy Awards in February 1939, Walt Disney won an Academy Honorary Award - a full-size Oscar statuette and seven miniature ones - for Snow White.

In 1987, was the first time that a criminal in the United States - a serial rapist - was convicted through the use of DNA evidence.